Spectre's 550W Modular Superflower

[jonnyGURU]

Ok. I received this power supply from Spectre and have taken it apart and taken pictures (to be posted once I resize them. I take them at 2048x1536 so I get good detail) and have made some observations....

Although this power supply is the same as a Mad Dog Sure Power Smart Cable (which model is inconsequential since ALL of them have 30A on the 12V rail. The only difference in output voltage specs is the 5V rail.) it's better in every way....

First, it has one large 140MM fan instead of two or three 60, 70 and 80MM fans is quieter! Furthermore, the fan spins for a couple minutes after shutting down, so the power supply keeps cool.

Sacond, it costs less!!!!

The box says it has Active PFC, but I was reading a PFC of only .70. Not bad, but not great. I could even see the Active PFC mechanism on the AC input inside the PSU, but .70?

The Superflower also uses 1200uF caps on the input side instead of 1000uF like the Mad Dog. Of course, anything over 800uF is overkill, but overkill isn't a bad thing if the alternative is a cap blowing up in your PSU!

The efficiency is really decent at 75%. That's even better than what I was getting with the Mad Dog which was at 68 ~ 73% (depending on load.)

As with most power supplies that have big 12V rails, when you load the 5V on this thing, ALL of the rails go NUTS! So no doubt, don't bother with the 600W Mad Dog if you're thinking "a few more watts are only going to be that much better." You'd only be throwing your money away.

Sure, you can't walk into a B&M and buy a Superflower... but you guys aren't typically B&M guys.

More later.. and thanks Spectre for allowing me to play with this power supply!!!

 

[jonnyGURU]

Oh.. and no doubt the 12V rail is strong. I put 30A on the 12V rail and left the table. I then started breakfast. It took me forever to make bacon and eggs for mi familia. One hour and 15 minutes later, the PSU was still putting along, faiirly cool, a slight odor but nothing to be alarmed about, and it was still stable. The only sign of instability was a slight .2V jump and dip in the 5V every 15 seconds or so. Something that is potentially harmful to a 5V device, but your not going to put a steady one hour long 30A load on the 12V rail either!

 

[[Spectre]]

Nice. Sounds good especially since I am not going to be a 5v heavy on the system. This might just get bumped up to the main PC. Thanks for doing the review and "Have fun storming the castle"

 

[jonnyGURU]

Ok.

I "stormed the castle," and this is what we have:

The power supply is a really good power supply, but not really great.

If the 12V is kept loaded high, it's stable. So in my "test 1" where the 12V is high and the 5V is relatively low (30A and 10A) the 12V looked good (11.8V,) but as I loaded up the 5V for "test 3," the 12V dipped down to 11.5V. In the full load test, which is rather unrealistic, I loaded the 5V back up and the 12V stabilized. The results here are nearly identical to that of the Mad Dog, execept I was able to put more of a load on the 5V rail for the full load test.

Bottom line, it would have been nice to see the 12V stay stable during "test 3." But I realize how ridiculous my tests are when compared to real world. People aren't putting 465W loads on their power supplies for an hour at a time. So I'm still going to give it a good score. Probably an 8.

 

[[Spectre]]

Cool. Can't wait to read the full review and see the pics when they go up at system logic.

 

[jonnyGURU]

I just saw on the box where the Active PFC is optional. Which explains the mediocre PF, but I have to wonder what all of the extra circuitry is on the AC side of the PSU.

 

[[Spectre]]

Yeah .7 doesn't really sound like active. Maybe the include the circuitry but didn't enable it or something weird like that?